SAQ 5, LCBO 12. And when the LCBO is cheaper, it’s often by a wide margin, whereas the opposite isn’t true. (That said, I suspect that the Weinstock Cellars Chardonnay – a whopping 64% more expensive in Quebec – is actually two different products. Though the listings are identical, the SAQ’s price is more in line with the price at the few US retail stores I checked. Or maybe it’s a typo and the LCBO meant $21.95 instead of $12.95. Or maybe Weinstock is looking to clear out its current inventory in the run-up to Passover and the LCBO was at the right place at the right time.)

At the retail level, wine and spirits pricing is affected by several factors including when the products were purchased by the retailer, the currency they’re paid for in, the exchange rate, the producer’s ex cellar price, volume discounts, shipping, government duties and taxes and the retailer’s and agent’s (aka “importer’s”) markups. On January 1, the Quebec sales tax was ratcheted up one percentage point. And in early February, the SAQ’s fixed markup was increased due to its now being tied to tied to the consumer price index. Whether or not these last two developments alone explain the outcome of the most recent shoot-outs, the trend is clear: the LCBO increasingly beats the SAQ on price.